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Old 4th August 2018, 12:42
Johannes Johannes is offline
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Re: №100 victory of Lt. Emil Lang - question

Hi

Speaking on behalf of Foreman/Mathews, I could only find seventeen claims for Lang's best day, and 170 overall not 173 on the mikrofilms, there is also a sub mikrofilm that has all claims by individual pilot, but this is only surviving in alphabet Kr-Le(by memory) and this backs-up my findings in the daily mikrofilm sheets.
The Hannig book you mention I have read, and cannot match anything really about with 3rd November 1943.
Prien's work is usually faultless(except II./JG 2 in Africa, which is entirely incorrect) we match 99.9% of the time. However he does add in other claims not on the mikrofilms with little evidence, hence he has probably added in a couple that I would not consider confirmed.
We did on TOCH discuss Lang's "overclaiming", this I calculated was over a relatively short period within 5./JG 54 from October until November 1943, aided by one Reinhold Hoffmann, can't say that Hannig was involved. Hoffmann himself claiming eight on 3rd November 1943, seven on 21st October 1943 to Lang's twelve, and eight on 22nd October 1943 to Lang's nine. There must have been other "helpers" to a lessor degree. Actually when flying with Alfred Gross Lang's claims return to a less outrageous pattern!
Actually I have noticed a pattern that significant numbers i.e "100", "150" ,"200", and "250" are usually reached on "big days" by top pilots, especially those less than honest at time, but if Hans-Joachim Marseille is anything to go by, then huge days can be done honestly.

Kind Regards

Johannes
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